Posts

Posted on

Amazing map sims

I visited an absolutely amazing set of sims devoted to the map collection of David Rumsey. These photos can’t begin to do it justice, and I simply must go back to explore more fully.

Here you can see the topographic maps of Yosemite used on a 3D topography of Yosemite (to scale), which fills four sims. I am standing on the observation deck just to the left of center in the photo, which is situated at the intersection of the sims. In the distance you can see two globes, which have orreries inside them. (Click on the photo for a larger version.)

Sitting on the orrery inside the celestial globe. You can see me to the left of the sign.

Another shot inside the celestial globe. Although it has rotated, you can still find me sitting on the orrery.

(A tip of the hat to NPIRL.)

Posted on

Limber up your tongue (and mind!)

Mr JJ Drinkwater announces the Great Mark Twain Cussoff

The Library of Caledon has joined forces with several other august bodies to sponsor this literary event of the highest merit, suitable for persons of refined sensibilities, from all parts of the 19th century and literary grid: a contest in the art of expression, to wit, unburdening oneself of an excess of sentiment with high-flown phrase and well-aimed epithet, in the manner of a character out of the works penned by Mr. Samuel Clemens, more familiarly Mark Twain.

Posted on

Caledon Mardi Gras parade

Last night saw a wonderful, silly, lag-filled, chaotic, creative event: a Caledon Mardi Gras parade (yes, held on the Friday after Mardi Gras, which is to say, during Lent). Radio Riel had a float (dancers on the skirt of Gabi’s dress). Here are a few photos I managed to get.

This is us in the chaos that was the staging area in Tanglewood. Over 60 avatars and a number of floats, all clustered around the telehub. At the left, you can see Admiral Wind’s New Toulouse float.

And this is us with onlookers somewhere on the road along northern Caledon.

I entitled this shot “Gabi, we hardly knew ye.” Sim crossings, as you might imagine, were a terror, as were narrow places. The float consisted of a vehicle base, which Gabi was driving and which incorporated the passenger dance balls, that sometimes got stuck on visible or invisible protuberances along the route. Then there was an attachment that provided the flounces and streamers for the float. Lastly, there were prim elements of Gabi’s personal outfit. These are a phantom copy of the attachments, apparently positioned as attached to her, well, um, you can see that for yourself. At the time I snapped this, Gabi was standing a few meters away wearing not only her personal prim attachments (in the correct spots), but also the float attachment.

Posted on

Elle visits Wyre

I had the great pleasure of giving my friend Elle a carriage ride around Wyre. We sat for a while on the bluffs in the northeast of the island and had a good talk. For once, I remembered to take a few pictures!

Posted on

Meme in the making?

Dandellion at Living in the Metaverse has a great idea: » Let’s Make The Grid Performing A Bit Better, Please

Shall we? Stop whining about things are not smooth as we wish. We all know they are not. Let’s do something about that. Consider that an ecology action. If each of us spend ten minutes and delete all the trash that clutters our inventories…

The basic idea is that cleaning up our inventories will help ease the load on asset servers and improve our client performance. She suggests starting with

  • freebies
  • old landmarks
  • notecards
  • “floating text” scripts
  • earlier versions of your own builds
  • lost and found items
  • demos

She is encouraging people to comment on her post with the number of items they’ve deleted.